http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...ged/article.do
I note that all the news reports say that "Barbara Nash has a diploma of natural nutrition gained from the College of National Nutrition in London." A quick interweb search suggests that no such place exists...
"No admission of liability" So a shameless quack then.Originally Posted by Croydon Bob
I suspect it's lousy journalism, Bob. It probably is the College of Natural Nutrition.
http://www.natnut.co.uk/
I think "Natnut" is appropriate....
Last edited by Jack of Kent; 22nd July 2008 at 02:56 PM.
...as opposed, of course, to the college of Unnatural Nutrition.
It doesn't really matter whether she has such a qualification or not. It means the same thing!
It's concerning enough that people trust these quacks to begin with but if the woman had started feeling ill, why did she keep on drinking the water?
Yes, it says that she asked the quack for advice but if something's making you ill, surely you would stop?
I find this to be similar to stories about nasty psychics who take people's £35,000 life savings off them etc. - the 'victim' is culpable too because of their own gullibility.
I'm not too sure whether people should be given compensation in these cases. Anyone who willingly goes on handing thousands of pounds over to psychics or continues to force water down their throats when it's making them ill gets harmed by their own stupidity.
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, but we shouldn't overlook the role of the 'victims' in these cases.
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Bah - hate the way they've worded that
She was awarded damages from the practitioner, she didn't enter a competition.
/nitpick.
But you do win a case (or can lose a case)...
John,
I understand your point about personal responsibility. However, I do not think it is so simple. Psychics aside, professionals can find it difficult to separate quackery from legitimate methods.
Several years ago, I saw a TV show debunking quackery. One of the doctors (I don't recall the name) said he became interested in sCAM when he had a terminal patient who wanted to try any "promising" clinical trial. He found her a study run by a "respected" clinician. As it happened, the clinician had turned quack, the study was bogus and ill-used his patient. He was furious.
If an MD, not given to magical thinking, can be fooled- what defense do we have?
Well when it comes to someone, say, suffering a stroke after a chiropractic manipulation then I wouldn't say the victim was culpable, but when I see a case like this you've got to ask yourself what the woman thought she was doing.
I suppose it depends where you want to draw the line between being a victim and of being culpably stupid.
It hasn't happened in this thread but I've seen similar cases before and everyone condemns the practitioners/perpetrators - but the 'victim' does have a role to play and I just think that some of them play a more active role than simply being a passive victim.
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Not sure I agree. People have been awarded damages after microwaving their pets, or burning their hands on McDonald's coffee, so when a 'healer' tells you that your symptoms are a natural part of the therapeutic process you ought be in a position to believe them. Otherwise chemotherapy is stuffed. The problem here really is the tolerance of Quacks, rather than the gullibility of the public (incurable). A few more cases like this is the best solution to alternative medicine.
There are various degrees that we can become victims from pure bad luck, by holding nonsense ideas and beliefs (and acting on them), through to sheer stupidity.
It's easy to dichotomise things like this into 'nasty alt. meddler' and their 'innocent victim' but both play a part in these things.
I'm sure many people become unwitting victims of stuff like this (not realising that chiropractors are quacks, for example) but every now and then you're going to come across people who willingly hand over all their money to psychics over a period of months and people who are going to force themselves to do things like ram water down their necks even though it is clearly making them ill.
What I'm saying is - don't overlook the role of the 'victim' in such cases. They may be more a victim of their own actions than anything else.
I know many skeptics love to see these stories as they're great examples of the harm that woo-practitioners can cause. But we really ought to be considering the fuller picture.
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I agree with John here, people do need to (or rather should) take responsibility for their own actions.
We all agree that a rational approach to things is a good idea but if someone wants to go blindly about is it fair they are rewarded when they step in it?
Of course this in no way lessens the culpability of the woo profiteers but a little critical thinking goes a long way.
John Jackson wrote:
I'm not too sure whether people should be given compensation in these cases. Anyone who willingly goes on handing thousands of pounds over to psychics or continues to force water down their throats when it's making them ill gets harmed by their own stupidity.
-snip-
I'm sure many people become unwitting victims of stuff like this (not realising that chiropractors are quacks, for example) but every now and then you're going to come across people who willingly hand over all their money to psychics over a period of months and people who are going to force themselves to do things like ram water down their necks even though it is clearly making them ill.
I’m curious as to why you seem to find it acceptable that people (“unwitting victims”) can be taken in by chiropractors (“not realizing that chiropractors are quacks”) when chiropractors are known to tell patients who are experiencing a deterioration in their symptoms that they are ‘retracing’ and that it’s important that they continue with their potentially life-threatening manipulative treatments…
…yet you consider that the woman in this story is “harmed by her own stupidity” despite the fact that sheChiropractic patients occasionally experience the phenomenon of retracing. Retracing is the re-experiencing or re-awakening of pain or other symptoms…
-snip-
Patients going though a particularly intense retracing pattern may feel as if they've had a serious relapse or are perhaps even getting worse.
Although retracing experiences usually last a short time and often pass relatively quickly, patients have been known to terminate their care as a result of them. During this period it is especially important that the patient tell the doctor what is going on. Patients who terminate their care as a result of retracing symptoms will be cheating themselves of a healing experience.
http://www.phlanetc1.com/cgi-bin/n/search.cgi?category=1&keyword=CA+Lynne&page=5
“…contacted the nutritionist about the side effects, but was assured that vomiting was a normal part of the detox programme.”
IMO, both are victims of quack practitioners who masquerade as figures of authority.
Well of course there's nothing intrinsicly suspect about a nutritionist. I've visited a nutritionist on the NHS and recieved sensible helpful advice on how I should be changing my diet to cope with Diabetes. She even coped with my snarking skeptical questions (If mashed potato has a higher GI than boiled potatoes are you telling me not to chew my food?)
When a main terestrial TV channels gives regular air time to fake Doctor Gillian McKeith, your idea of what contitutes sensible nutritional advice may be understandably skewed, especialy when supposed impartial advice and numerous advert expound the virtues of drinking more water.
In encountering her first symptoms she did the sensible thing and contacted the qualified professional under whose care they had been placed.
No, I can't find it in myslef to blame the victim.
Clearly the lesson in this case is to bring to greater public awareness the harm some chemicals can do. Ban Di Hydrogen Monoxide!
OK, this is a subjective issue so we're not necessarily all going to converge on an agreement.
But I'll try to clarify my thinking a bit better than I have done so far.
I don't see victims as all being equal as there can be many ways in which a person can contribute to their becoming a victim. I'll break it down into 3 categories:Of course you could always make more categories and find counter-examples or extenuating circumstances but that's a reasonable framework to use.
- Unfortunate victim of circumstance - This is where any one can end up being mugged, the victim of a sophisticated scam, car crash... anything where the outcome could not be foreseen.
.- Victims of avoidable circumstance - This is where people can becomes victims of things that they could have avoided. I include being 'victims of belief' in this category so things like being a victim of MLM schemes, or chiropractic neck manipulations would count. This is where people can get taken in by things but if they'd bothered to check things out, they could have avoided it.
.- Victims of their own negligence/stupidity/etc. - This is where people end up being harmed by things where they really should have known better due to obvious warning signs, previous harm from the same thing and such like. i.e. the fact that they are being harmed should be blatantly obvious yet they still continue doing what's harming them.
As skeptics, I think we're used to dealing with beliefs that would put people into category 2. That is, those things that many people believe in but they do not actually work and often carry associated risks.
I would put someone who went to a chiropractor and ended up suffering a stroke into category 2 as it's something they probably believed to be a real and worthwhile treatment (due the promotion of it, perceived authenticity, etc.) but if they'd looked further they would have known better.
But this one where the woman was on this weight-loss detox thing and it was making her ill then at that point yes, category 2 - but even after this point (yes and after further bogus advice) she continued on this course of action well after the point that it must have been blatantly obvious that it was harming her - category 3.
Now I baulk at category2! I still think that people who get harmed by things like MLM schemes etc. are culpable due to their lack of skepticism (isn't protecting oneself from such things a major benefit of skepticism?) but at least it is understandable. But category 3 - to me, they are as much victims of themselves as of anyone else.
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